Culture

Written by Donna LaLonde, Wendy Martinez, Jack Miller, Miles Ott and Suzanne Thornton on 30 May 2019.

In professional and classroom settings, we strive to communicate the intention of a respectful and productive interaction. In order to accomplish this, we all need to be mindful of our implicit biases, especially when beginning new professional relationships and establishing learning environments. The resources provided in this article are presented with this very intention.

Statisticians have a crucial role to play in ensuring fairness and justice in the legal system, particularly where the assessment and interpretation of forensic evidence is concerned (see our April 2019 special issue for more on this topic). In court, statisticians may serve as expert witnesses – but they may also find themselves serving in an entirely different capacity: as a member of a jury.

Letisha Smith – winner of the 2018 Award for Statistical Excellence in Early-Career Writing – started the year with the resolve to eat smarter, with less food and less money going to waste. She turned to machine learning to help streamline her meal plans.

Imagine you hold three six-sided dice in your hand. Now throw them, and before they come to a stop, answer me this: do you think you will roll at least two of the same number? Yes or no. More importantly, how much do you want to bet on that outcome?

In our December 2018 print edition, Jeff Ralph, the Royal Statistical Society's William Guy schools' lecturer for the 2017-18 academic year, explains how times have changed for teenagers, as told through official statistics. The print article tackles the subjects of life expectancy, household income, household expenditure and inflation. In this web-exclusive piece, Ralph explains how baby names have changed over the past hundred years, and how the number of undergraduate degrees awarded have gone up and up.